06/24/2025
DM STORY
Ma, my mother once told me, “Any man who hits you once will hit you again.” But I was in love… so I said, “It was a mistake. He apologized.”
I met him in 2020 at a wedding in Ibadan. I was 25, working in a supermarket and supporting my younger siblings after our dad passed. He came from a well-to-do family in Lagos, charming, soft-spoken, and generous. Within months, he started sending money for my siblings’ school fees and helped me rent a better apartment. I thought I had found my safe place.
We got married in December 2021. My mother warned me when I told her he slapped me during a heated argument while we were planning the wedding. But I defended him. He cried that day and said, “I’ve never raised my hand on a woman before. I was just overwhelmed.” I believed him.
After marriage, we moved to Lagos. I quit my job, thinking we would plan my own business together as he promised. But after a year, I realized I was married to a man who needed to control everything, what I wore, who I spoke to, how I spent money. I became a shadow of myself.
The first serious beating happened during a family event. In front of his parents. I had mistakenly called him out on something he lied about. He dragged me to the car and slapped me three times. His father told me later, “Don’t disgrace our family. If he hits you, correct him inside the house.” His mother? She looked at me and said, “A man that feeds you is your head. Don’t provoke him.”
I was 5 months pregnant. That night, he came to me crying. I forgave him again. But it never stopped.
In 2023, he beat me so badly I ended up in the hospital with three stitches on my face. I lied to the doctor that I fell in the bathroom. But deep down, I was already breaking.
One night in March 2024, he kicked me during an argument and I collapsed. I woke up in the hospital with my mother beside me. That was the day I left. With just my baby bag and a swollen face.
Now I’m back at my mother’s house. I don’t have anything😭, no savings, no job, no business. Just my child and the pieces of myself that I’m slowly picking up.
I wish I had listened to my mother when she warned me.
